Venezuela lights out
The country is running out of power. The regime will find ways to hang on
AT 7.30pm it is pitch dark at the Orinokia shopping centre in Puerto Ordaz, in eastern Venezuela. The mall, one of the biggest in Latin America, would normally be floodlit and open until 9pm. But under a new edict from Venezuelas government, shopping centres must close by seven. That is one of a number of measures the countrys populist regime has taken to cope with crippling power shortages. It has instigated scheduled four-hour rolling power cuts across the country, which in some areas have lasted for days. Civil servants have been told to work just two days a week. Clocks have been moved forward by half an hour, ending the Venezuela-only time zone introduced by the late Hugo Chvez, the countrys leader from 1999 to 2013. The remedy for the energy crisis, the government seems to be telling its citizens, is to do as little as possible.
For residents of Puerto Ordaz, Venezuelas only planned city, power shortages seem like a bad joke. It was founded in the 1950s with the idea that cheap hydroelectric power would fuel industries that would make the country less dependent on oil exports. The city lies downstream from the Guri hydroelectric plant, the fourth-largest in the world, which provides around two-fifths of Venezuelas electricity. But the reservoir is running dry. The water level is less than two metres from its catastrophe point, at which the generator must be switched off to avoid damaging its turbines. Unless it rains, Venezuela could be plunged into darkness within a matter of weeks.
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The immediate cause is drought, worsened by El Nio, a climatic phenomenon. But that is not the whole story. This is Venezuelas third electricity crisis since 2010. The national government, which owns the Guri plant, has not increased power generation in line with demand. It has spent billions of dollars on back-up thermoelectric projects, but failed to maintain them properly. Many are operating at far below their capacity.
Bolivarian blackouts
The power cuts add to the misery caused by inflation, which is expected to top 400% this year, and shortages of basic consumer goods. Polar, a private conglomerate that makes around 80 per cent of Venezuelas beer (as well as much of its food), stopped brewing on April 29th after the government turned down its request for the dollars it needs to import malted barley. At night, people express their fury by burning tyres and running wires to block traffic along the road that leads from Puerto Ordaz to San Flix, its older, poorer neighbour. Im a pacifist, I dont like protesting, says Karina, cradling a baby. But this is unbearable.
Such discontent is a worry for Chvezs bumbling successor, Nicols Maduro. About 60% of voters want him out of office by the end of this year, according to opinion polls. The opposition, which took control of the National Assembly in elections last December, is doing its best to make that happen. One idea, a constitutional amendment to shorten Mr Maduros term, has been blocked by the supreme court, which takes its marching orders from the regime. The governments foes hope to get further with a referendum to recall the president from office.
In graphics: A political and economic guide to Venezuela
They have cleared the first hurdle. In only six days the opposition collected 1.85m signatures on a petition to initiate the referendum, more than nine times the 200,000 needed. Karina, once a supporter of the government, was one of the signers. On May 2nd the opposition delivered the signatures to the election commission. In theory, once the commission verifies them, opposition workers will collect 4m signatures, representing a fifth of the electorate, to launch the referendum itself. If that passes this year, with more than the 7.6m votes Mr Maduro won in the 2013 presidential election, he will have to leave office and a new election will be held.
The government can be counted on to use all the tricks at its disposal to frustrate that plan. Mr Maduro has dismissed the referendum as a plot by the oligarchy that now runs the National Assembly. In case the election commission does not prove to be as subservient as the supreme court, he created an entirely new council for signature revision to double-check its work. It will be headed by Jorge Rodrguez, the gruff mayor of a district in Caracas, who is one of his closest allies. In making the announcement, a rattled Mr Maduro repeatedly claimed that the recall process is optional. In fact, Chvez inserted it into the constitution adopted in 1999 as a way to justify extending presidential terms from five years to six.
Delaying the referendum might suit the governments purposes (though not Mr Maduros) better than derailing it. To trigger a new presidential election, a referendum would have to be completed before Mr Maduros term has less than two years to run. If it happens later, the vice-president, currently Aristbulo Istriz, would take over for the remainder of the term. The cut-off date is disputed. Mr Maduro would argue that his six-year term began when he took over from Chvez, then suffering from cancer, in January 2013; the opposition says it started after he won the election in April that year.
A referendum that ushered into power Mr Istriz, who is more moderate than Mr Maduro but still a loyal chavista, might delight some factions of the regime, including the armed forces. Many chavistas know that the floundering president cannot win another election in 2018. They would prefer to go into that fight with a more pragmatic, and perhaps more competent, leader. The opposition, and most Venezuelans, would like Mr Maduro to leave office, without turmoil, this year. Of all the possible scenarios, says Luis Vicente Len, a pollster, that one seems the least likely.
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